Where can I share my design work without getting banned?

r/Design_Critiques is the safest room in the niche — posting your own work with a specific question is its entire purpose. r/graphic_design welcomes work put up for critique, r/web_design takes showcases when the design rationale is in the post, and r/FigmaDesign takes plugins and templates with a stated use case. Avoid r/UXDesign, r/UI_Design and r/userexperience for anything with a link in it.

Can I post my portfolio on r/UXDesign?

No. Its posted rules ban self-promotion and a portfolio link is treated as promotion, which surprises most designers because the subject matter looks like a match. What the sub does want is process with no link attached: how you recruited participants, what the usability test contradicted, how you argued a decision through with a stakeholder. Put the portfolio in r/Design_Critiques instead, with a question on it.

Can I promote a Figma plugin or template on Reddit?

r/FigmaDesign is the right room and plugin and template shares are a normal post type there, provided the thing is genuinely Figma-native and you state the specific job it does. Shares with no Figma connection are off-topic. A preview grid with a link tends to sink; showing one component and the structural decision inside it — the auto-layout, the variable setup, the rebuild it saves — does not.

How do I get design clients from Reddit without a hire-me post?

By never writing one. r/graphic_design removes solicitation specifically, and a single closing line about taking on similar projects is enough to reclassify a critique post as an advert. The route that works is slower and more reliable: post work for critique, answer other people’s critique threads properly, and let your profile carry the availability. People who want to hire a designer look up whoever posted the thing they admired.

Is Reddit worth it for designers in 2026?

For clients and for feedback, yes; for volume traffic to a portfolio, rarely. The value is that design threads are dense, specific and heavily cited — a well-argued critique post gets quoted back for years and increasingly turns up inside AI assistant answers about design decisions. That only happens to posts with reasoning in them. An image with a link is not cited by anything.

How to promote a design product or service on Reddit without getting banned

Design is the one niche where the work itself is the post, and that is both the advantage and the trap. A developer can describe a build; a designer has to show the artefact. Showing it is exactly what a promotional post looks like, so design communities have learned to judge the framing rather than the file — and the framing they reject is a beautiful image with nothing to answer underneath it.

The specific mistake is picking the room by its name. r/UXDesign sounds like the natural home for a UX case study and bans self-promotion in its posted rules, with portfolio links counted as promotion. r/graphic_design will happily critique your work and removes anything that reads as availability for hire. The distinction those communities are drawing is not between good work and bad work, it is between a piece put up to be examined and a piece put up to be admired.

Once you see that line, the niche gets easy. Post the artefact with a question attached and you are inside the norm everywhere from r/Design_Critiques to r/web_design. Post the same artefact with a caption and a link and you are removed from most of them, including the ones that look friendliest.

Where design work can actually be promoted

Each of these is a real community with its own rule. The rule is the part that matters — a good post in the wrong thread is still a removed post.

r/Design_CritiquesPromo tolerated
The one genuinely promo-tolerant room in the niche. Posting your own work is the entire purpose of the community rather than an exception to its rules.
The rule here: Attach the actual work and one specific question about it. Posts with no artefact attached, and posts that pitch a service rather than show a design, are removed.
r/graphic_designConditional
Portfolio critique is the culture here, so showing finished or in-progress pieces is normal and expected.
The rule here: Sharing the work is fine; soliciting is not. The moment a post reads as availability for hire rather than a piece up for critique, it is removed — the same image passes or fails on that framing alone.
r/FigmaDesignConditional
Plugins, templates and shared files are a native post type here, which makes it the best room in the niche for a template set or a tool.
The rule here: What you share has to be a Figma thing — a plugin, a template, a file — with the use case stated plainly. Anything without a Figma connection is off-topic regardless of how good it is.
r/web_designConditional
More tolerant of showcases than the developer subs, and the right room for a site, a landing page, or a design system.
The rule here: A showcase needs the rationale next to it — the grid, the type scale, the directions you rejected. A post that is only a link with no design discussion is removed even when the site is good.
r/webflowConditional
Tool-specific, so a site built there is on-topic by definition and the audience can read what you actually did.
The rule here: Every showcase needs a Webflow-specific build note: the interaction, the CMS structure, the thing that was awkward inside the builder. Product promotion with no Webflow angle is off-topic.
r/UXDesignStrict
The largest UX audience and the one designers most often get removed from, because the subject matter reads as an invitation that the rules do not extend.
The rule here: Self-promotion is banned in the posted rules and a portfolio link counts as promotion. Post process instead — how the research was run, what the test contradicted, what you shipped anyway — and keep the portfolio out of the submission.

Rules change and moderators enforce their own reading of them. Check the sidebar before you post, every time, and see the full directory of 104 communities for the rest.

What this audience actually upvotes

The versions you killed. Designers upvote the four rejected directions far more reliably than the one that shipped, because the rejected ones are where the reasoning is visible. A single final comp invites "nice"; four comps with a note on why three died invites an argument, and an argument is engagement a moderator can see is genuine.

A number attached to a visual decision. Design communities almost never see conversion rates, task-completion times, or support-ticket counts next to a layout, and the scarcity is the opportunity. "Contrast went from 3.1:1 to 5.4:1 and the support tickets about the disabled state stopped" is a sentence nobody can write from a template.

The constraint you were working inside. A brand guideline that forbade the obvious answer, a client budget that ruled out custom type, a legal requirement that forced a longer form. Constraints turn a portfolio piece into a case anyone can learn from, and they are the part of the story an advertisement always leaves out because it makes the work look less free.

The two ratios that decide whether you get removed

Enforcement on Reddit is account-level, not post-level. A moderator opens your profile after one post trips their attention and skims what fraction of the account is about its product. That is why a reasonable post attached to a promotional profile still goes.

9:1 — comments to posts. Reddit's self-promotion guidance implies about nine contributions that have nothing to do with your product for every one that does. It comes from Reddit's 2014 moderator clarification and its current small-business guide restates it as “be a user first”.

3:1 — value posts to promotional posts. Among your submissions, at most one in four should promote anything. Clearing 9:1 while every post you make is a plug still reads as a marketing account.

The mention-deletion test. Delete your product name from the post and reread it. If nothing of value is left, it was an advertisement with context attached and it will be removed. If it still teaches something, the mention is a footnote on a real contribution.

New accounts have a further problem: most large subreddits silently filter posts from accounts under a karma or age threshold, so the post looks live to you and is invisible to everyone else. Check yours with the karma and warmup calculator before you post at all.

What gets design work removed

Posting the portfolio piece with nothing to answer
A design community reads an unquestioned showcase as an advert, and it is right to. If there is nothing you want examined, the only remaining reason to post the image is exposure. r/Design_Critiques removes posts with no real work attached; r/web_design removes showcases with no design discussion; the image is not what is being judged in either case.
Instead: Lead with the question and let the work follow it. "The client rejected the version I preferred and I still cannot tell whether they were right — here are both" is a post. The same two images with a caption are a portfolio update.
Choosing r/UXDesign because it sounds like the right room
It is the largest UX community and the topic looks like a match, so it is where most designers post their case study first. Its posted rules ban self-promotion and treat a portfolio link as promotion, so the post goes and the account picks up a mark with the moderators who see the most designers.
Instead: Take critique requests to r/Design_Critiques, where they are the point. Keep r/UXDesign for process discussion with no link in it at all — how you ran the study, what the participants did that the brief did not predict.
Letting "available for work" anywhere near the post
r/graphic_design removes hire-me posts specifically, and the trigger is smaller than people expect. A closing line offering to take on similar projects, or a flair that reads as a rate card, reclassifies the whole submission from critique to solicitation without changing a pixel.
Instead: Say nothing about availability. Designers who want to hire someone check the profile of whoever posted work they liked, which is where that information belongs. The post does one job: put the work up to be examined.
Shipping a template set as a link and a screenshot
Template and plugin posts fail in a particular way: the community cannot tell what the thing is for from a preview grid. r/FigmaDesign removes shares with no Figma connection or no stated use case, and a screenshot with a link supplies neither.
Instead: Name the specific job it does and the decision you made inside it — the auto-layout structure, the variable setup, the thing it stops you having to rebuild. Show one component in detail instead of forty in a grid.

A post that would survive

Written for r/web_design. Adapt the specifics; keep the shape.

I redesigned a pricing page and conversion dropped 22%. Here is the reasoning and where I now think it failed.

Three-tier pricing page, around 9,000 visits a month. The version I inherited was the client's original: three heavily bordered cards, the middle one scaled up slightly with a "Most popular" ribbon across the corner, prices set at 34px. It converted at 3.4% to trial. I rebuilt it. Removed the ribbon, replaced the three boxes with a single hairline rule between tiers, set prices at 28px in the same weight as the tier name, and moved the feature list into one comparison table underneath instead of repeating it inside every card. It is a better-looking page. I would put it in a portfolio without hesitating. It converted at 2.65%. Over six weeks and 11,400 visits that is roughly 85 trials that did not happen. Where I think the reasoning broke, in the order I now believe it: 1. Removing the boxes removed the choice. Three bordered cards read as three things you pick between. Three rows divided by a hairline read as a list you scroll past. I had filed the container as decoration when it was doing the structural work of framing a decision. 2. The ribbon was not clutter, it was the only guidance on the page. With it gone, nothing told anyone which tier to take, and the distribution flattened - the middle tier went from 61% of signups to 38%, with most of that landing on the cheapest one rather than spreading evenly. 3. Matching the price to the tier-name weight lost the scan. At 28px in the same weight, the price stopped being the thing your eye lands on first. On a page whose entire job is a comparison, that number has to be findable in about half a second and it no longer was. We put the ribbon back and re-boxed the tiers, kept the new type scale and the comparison table, and it is running at 3.6% now. So the typographic changes were fine and the structural ones were the damage. The thing I would tell myself before starting: on a page whose only job is a decision, hierarchy is not taste, it is the control. I was critiquing the page as a composition when I should have been critiquing it as an interface. Interested in whether anyone has managed to keep a borderless pricing layout and hold conversion, because I cannot find a version of it that works.

Why it survives: No product name, no client name, no link, and it is still a case study a designer would save — the mention-deletion test passed with nothing left to remove. It obeys the r/web_design rule by putting the rationale beside the showcase rather than a link beside a screenshot, it carries the numbers this niche almost never sees attached to a layout, and it ends on a genuine open question rather than an invitation to hire. Admitting that the prettier version lost is what makes the rest of it credible; a post reporting that a redesign worked would have been read as a pitch.

Frequently asked questions

Where can I share my design work without getting banned?: r/Design_Critiques is the safest room in the niche — posting your own work with a specific question is its entire purpose. r/graphic_design welcomes work put up for critique, r/web_design takes showcases when the design rationale is in the post, and r/FigmaDesign takes plugins and templates with a stated use case. Avoid r/UXDesign, r/UI_Design and r/userexperience for anything with a link in it.
Can I post my portfolio on r/UXDesign?: No. Its posted rules ban self-promotion and a portfolio link is treated as promotion, which surprises most designers because the subject matter looks like a match. What the sub does want is process with no link attached: how you recruited participants, what the usability test contradicted, how you argued a decision through with a stakeholder. Put the portfolio in r/Design_Critiques instead, with a question on it.
Can I promote a Figma plugin or template on Reddit?: r/FigmaDesign is the right room and plugin and template shares are a normal post type there, provided the thing is genuinely Figma-native and you state the specific job it does. Shares with no Figma connection are off-topic. A preview grid with a link tends to sink; showing one component and the structural decision inside it — the auto-layout, the variable setup, the rebuild it saves — does not.
How do I get design clients from Reddit without a hire-me post?: By never writing one. r/graphic_design removes solicitation specifically, and a single closing line about taking on similar projects is enough to reclassify a critique post as an advert. The route that works is slower and more reliable: post work for critique, answer other people’s critique threads properly, and let your profile carry the availability. People who want to hire a designer look up whoever posted the thing they admired.
Is Reddit worth it for designers in 2026?: For clients and for feedback, yes; for volume traffic to a portfolio, rarely. The value is that design threads are dense, specific and heavily cited — a well-argued critique post gets quoted back for years and increasingly turns up inside AI assistant answers about design decisions. That only happens to posts with reasoning in them. An image with a link is not cited by anything.

Free tools for this

Last reviewed: July 2026